Contacts:

Jonathan Højberg, Blue Power Technologies I/S, 27292175 (jh@bluepowertechnologies.com)
Anne Ladegaard Skov, DTU Chemical Engineering, 45252825 (al@kt.dtu.dk)

Left: The Wave Harvester with cables made of a stretchable capacitor. Right: Cross section of the capacitor cable.

A brand new interdisciplinary project about utilizing the energy of ocean waves has been launched at DTU. The project is called the Wave Harvester and is administered by the company Blue Power Technologies I/S in close collaboration with the departments of Mechanics, Electronics and Physics.

The Wave Harvester uses a giant stretchable capacitor film to convert the mechanical energy of the waves into electrical energy. The capacitor is referred to as an artificial muscle due to the ability to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy, but in this project we utilize the inverted process, and the result is a high conversion efficiency compared to the competitors in the market.

The specific focus area of your project is set in collaboration with the supervisor at the beginning of the project, but it might include characterization of known capacitor films on state of the art rheometers, development of new and improved materials to fit the demands of efficient and cost effective energy harvesting and theoretical description and simulation of the energy harvesting cycle to identify the most important improvements. No matter what you choose, you will be part of the development team of the Wave Harvester together with high qualified students from DTU mechanics and DTU electronics.

The project enables you to work in a team where people have complementary skills, where you contribute to a project aiming at commercialization, and where you can have a flavour of how your post DTU life might be.

You can read more about the overall project on www.BluePowerTechnologies.com/dtu.